


the planet is fine (the people are fucked)

by witching



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Environmentalism, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 17:19:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19795453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witching/pseuds/witching
Summary: crowley does still rather like the world, that certainly hasn't changed, but he's beginning to realize that the humans might not feel the same way.





	the planet is fine (the people are fucked)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [regencysnuffboxes (malicegeres)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/malicegeres/gifts).



> prompt from tumblr: a/c and "you're too young to hate the world"  
> title is a george carlin quote don't @ me  
> also go listen to "our blue dot" by barenaked ladies on repeat please

It was sweltering hot, the kind of heat that made blinking seem like a chore, and Crowley lay spread eagle on the floor, melting into plush cream-colored carpet, his eyes closed and his shirt unbuttoned. The heat was the least of his worries and the easiest to fix, but he insisted upon being dramatic about it until Aziraphale fixed it for him, as it gave him more time to not worry about the bigger issues at hand. He let out a pitiful exhausted groan, prompting a small chuckle from the angel, who was watching his mild tantrum from an armchair a few feet away.

"I liked the hardwood, you know," Aziraphale scolded, though his tone was mostly good-natured. He felt it was necessary to give Crowley a bit of a hard time before he gave in to the overwhelming urge to comfort him.

“Can’t lie on hardwood,” Crowley mumbled, moving his mouth as little as possible. “Makes my back hurt. Carpet is comfortable, good for wallowing.”

Aziraphale smiled in spite of himself, biting back a snarky comment about the entirely optional nature of back pain, and an even snarkier comment about the entirely optional nature of lying on the floor in the first place. “Whatever you say, dear,” he murmured with only the slightest hint of snark, feeling rather proud of his restraint. “Care to remind me why we’re… wallowing?”

Crowley opened his eyes and turned his head to face the angel, huffing out a breath. “D’you remember when we saved the world?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, suddenly apprehensive. “Why?”

“D’you think it was worth it?”

The question was pensive, quiet, and entirely unexpected. Struck dumb, the angel blinked and the air shifted, the thick, heavy heat giving way to a climate more conducive to conversation. He looked down at Crowley, whose big yellow eyes were looking back up at him, and he felt the silence weighing down on his shoulders. He must have misheard, he was sure of it, there was no way that Crowley had said –

“Aziraphale, do you think it was worth it?” the demon persisted, apparently impatient for a response, sounding a bit desperate.

Aziraphale floundered, struggling to form words, eventually stammering out a weak “Of course I do.”

Crowley frowned, his brow knit deeply. “Do you, though?”

“Of  _ course _ I do, Crowley,” Aziraphale repeated, now a great deal more sure of himself. “Don’t be silly.”

“M’not being silly,” Crowley grumbled petulantly. “S’just – s’been what, thirty years, give or take? Long enough for everyone to forget the lessons they should’ve learned from the Cold War. Which only happened because they forgot the lessons from the Second World War, which only happened because they forgot the lessons from the First World War. You look around at what’s going on out there and try to tell me  _ that’s  _ the world we fought to save.”

Aziraphale splayed his fingers out across his lap, biting his lip, and then he leveled the demon with a stern look. "You can't say things like that," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. "It isn't you. It's – you're scaring me."

"We  _ should _ be scared," Crowley retorted. "Everything is falling apart."

"What's brought this on?"

"Does it have to be something specific?" Crowley shook his head, closing his eyes again, putting his hands beneath his head. "Everything, angel. Everything."

Aziraphale quite literally put his foot down at that, his shoes thudding on the carpet as he leapt to his feet. Crowley started at the sound, and Aziraphale extended a hand to help him off the floor, which the demon accepted. The angel began buttoning up Crowley's shirt, his deft fingers moving at an inhuman speed, tutting and shaking his head all the while.

"What are you doing?" Crowley asked in a daze. Aziraphale simply gestured toward the floor, and the demon followed his gaze to his own bare feet. "Why do I need shoes?"

Seeing that Crowley had already manifested a pair of shoes despite his confusion, Aziraphale twined their fingers together and pulled the demon along behind him. "We're going out," he said tersely.

He didn't bother with trying to make Crowley drive them anywhere, choosing instead to miracle them to St. James's Park. He steered Crowley toward a bench, the bench that so thoroughly belonged to the two of them that even a human might be able to pick up the lingering ethereal energy from it, and forcefully guided him to sit.

_ "I like the seas as they are," _ Aziraphale said softly, his voice a bit thick. "That's what you told me. Do you remember that?"

Crowley looked up at him, his brow furrowed. "I… I do, yeah, but –"

"But what? You've changed your mind? We went through all of that just for you to give up now?"

"I'm not – I haven't given up," Crowley said earnestly, averting his eyes in shame. "I don't want to give up. I just can't see the  _ point _ of it."

Aziraphale set his jaw, his eyes on fire, and spoke in a quiet voice full of barely-concealed rage. "Anthony Crowley, you look at me right now." He waited for the demon to look up again before continuing. "You are far too young to hate the world."

"I'm hardly  _ too young _ for anything," Crowley interrupted, almost teasing through the veil of his uncertainty. 

"Shut up," the angel snapped, his voice wavering. "The  _ flood, _ Crowley. The crucifixion. The Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch hunts, slavery and genocide and fascism. You lived through all of it and you still saw a world worth saving." He grabbed Crowley's hand and held it in both of his own, taking a seat next to him. "I would have let Armageddon happen. We could have lost everything, if it weren't for you and your unfathomable optimism."

Crowley shook his head in protest. "No no no," he mumbled weakly, "all I did was prolong your misery because I didn't want to be alone."

"There was no misery," Aziraphale insisted gently. "You opened my eyes."

"I  _ manipulated _ you," Crowley spat.

"You did what you had to do to get the truth through my thick skull." Aziraphale spoke firmly now, but not unkindly, raising his voice as if the volume would make his point clearer. 

Crowley closed his eyes again and turned away, exhaling sharply through his nose. "Okay. Okay, maybe it was a good thing to do, at the time. But what did it achieve, angel? Nothing is better. Nothing is different."

Aziraphale looked momentarily hurt before schooling his face into a more neutral mask. "I didn't realize you felt that way."

Crowley squeezed the angel's hand, shaking his head, frowning guiltily. "I don't – I don't mean  _ you. _ I don't mean  _ us." _

"Then what do you mean?"

"I mean the humans, angel. They never stop, they're always outdoing themselves, like life is one big contest to see who can be the most rotten piece of scum." Crowley stood abruptly, turning to face Aziraphale, his voice getting more heated with every word. "And of course, they can't keep that cruelty quarantined, they have to spread it around, don't they? To the animals and the plants and the bloody air."

Looking up at the demon, who was now gritting his teeth furiously, Aziraphale felt pity well up in his chest. "But there's good, too, surely."

"Not enough," Crowley ground out bitterly.

"I'm sorry, my dear, it's just…" Aziraphale chose his next words very carefully. "It seems to me that they've always been this way, and you've always loved them. What's changed?"

"Maybe I got tired of squinting to find the bright side of all their bullshit," Crowley muttered. "Maybe I've just been paying more attention lately. Or maybe it's that they weren't  _ actively killing the planet _ until fairly recently."

Aziraphale felt something click into place in his mind. "Is  _ that _ what this is all about?"

"Isn't that enough?"

"Well, yes, it's upsetting," Aziraphale agreed, "but I don't like that it's got you  _ this _ upset."

Crowley grunted an acknowledgement and turned away. "Can we go home?"

Standing to join the demon, Aziraphale reclaimed his hand and popped them back to the sitting room, with its hardwood floors fully restored. Crowley felt the way his feet hit the floor, then looked down and groaned.

"Oh, hush," said Aziraphale, who had taken up residence in his armchair once again. "Come here, you can wallow just as well in my lap."

Crowley collapsed like a ragdoll into the angel's lap, throwing his head back against one arm of the chair and swinging his legs over the other. His eyes drifted closed as he settled comfortably into his position, letting out a sigh, and then said nothing for several minutes. When he did speak, his voice was so low that the angel almost didn't hear it.

"S'my planet," he murmured softly, all his rage dissipated into tired sorrow. "More than theirs, I mean."

Aziraphale reached out to brush a lock of hair from Crowley's face, letting his hand come to rest on the demon's cheek. "Nobody really  _ owns _ it," he said diplomatically.

"I know," Crowley admitted, a hint of a whine in his voice, "but I have to keep living here for a long time, and they don't, you know." He lifted his head slightly to look up at the angel. "People keep creating these problems and thinking that whoever comes after them will fix it, but nobody ever fixes any of it, and they don't realize that  _ I've _ got to deal with it long after they're gone."

Wrapping a protective arm around him, Aziraphale pulled Crowley closer, humming sympathetically. For a few moments, he simply held the demon, at a loss for any helpful response, and then something occurred to him. "Well," he began, speaking tentatively, "why don't  _ you _ fix it?"

Crowley reared his head back, giving the angel a bewildered look. "What do you mean, me fix it? I'm just one person. Demon. Whatever."

"Perhaps, but I'd say the demon factor gives you a bit of an edge," Aziraphale pointed out. "I'm just saying, if it's… if it's a matter of feeling hopeless watching the world go to bits, why should you just sit back and watch it? Why not do something about it?"

"I can't – I shouldn't go around fixing the world," Crowley stammered nervously, lowering his voice. "I mean, I know they've mostly left us alone so far, but what if – what if  _ they _ get wind of it?"

Aziraphale snorted. "You're worried after three decades of cohabitation with an angel, Hell is going to come after you for this," he deadpanned.

Crowley rolled his eyes at the angel's flippant attitude, but the corner of his lip quirked up in the hint of a smile. "No. I mean, yes, but – I mean, we've still been doing our jobs, and they've still been… loosely monitoring us. We can get away with the little things like we used to do, but I don't think they'd take kindly to my saving the world. Again."

"Crowley, my dear," Aziraphale said breezily, "I think you're forgetting one very obvious thing."

"And what's that?"

The angel leaned in close, wiggling his eyebrows conspiratorially, slipping into a mischievous whisper. "All those people you see ruining the environment, they're doing it because it's convenient for them." Seeing Crowley's blank stare in response, Aziraphale pressed on, "So every time you do something to  _ help _ the environment, you'd be inconveniencing  _ all _ those people."

"Oh," Crowley breathed reverently, his eyes lighting up. "Oh, that's good, angel, that's really good."

Aziraphale sat as the demon began making plans, the gears turning in his head, concocting the most efficient way to go about his new task. He had always been efficient with his work, Aziraphale had thought so even when they were meant to be enemies. Low effort, high yield. The angel admired that about him, and he enjoyed watching Crowley's face as a plan developed.

Crowley was only quiet and lost in his thoughts for a few seconds before he surfaced, leaning forward to give Aziraphale a firm kiss. "I've got some research to do," he murmured warmly. "Don't wanna get up, though."

"You old snake," Aziraphale teased, "go ahead, I don't mind."

Crowley beamed at the angel's permission, immediately snapping his fingers to summon his laptop without moving from his seat. "Thanks, angel," he said offhand, belying the true gratitude he felt.

After squeezing his shoulder by way of response, Aziraphale looked earnestly into Crowley's eyes. "Are you alright, Crowley? Really?"

"I am," Crowley answered, sounding pleased with himself. 

"Are you sure? Because you were quite worked up a few moments ago, and I just want to make sure you're okay." Aziraphale chuckled quietly to himself before adding, "Don't want to sic you on the world if you're not in your right mind."

Crowley gave him a bit of a sad smile, tilting his head back to improve his view of the angel's face. "M'fine, angel, really," he said gently. "I needed you to open my eyes, is all."

Smiling, Aziraphale tightened his embrace around the demon again, pulling him close. Crowley hummed pleasantly and leaned into the touch, laying his head on Aziraphale's chest. It was a difficult angle to conduct his research from, but not impossible; Crowley's fingers drummed away at the keyboard while he hardly even glanced at the screen.

After a few minutes of relative silence, the angel asked, "Finding anything good?"

Crowley let out a laugh that could have been categorized as a giggle, were he not within earshot of the categorizer. "Can't tell you," he murmured deviously, "or you'll be forced to try and  _ thwart _ me."

"Alright, then," Aziraphale replied amicably, "foul beasts must be left to their wiles." Rubbing Crowley's back with one hand, he snatched a book out of thin air with the other and situated it so he could read without obstructing the demon's research. "It is, of course, my angelic duty to keep you under observation," he added.

"Of course," Crowley agreed, and then he hissed with satisfaction as he finalized a purchase on the computer. "Hey, angel, it counts as a good deed if I'm helping local businesses, doesn't it?"

"One would certainly hope."

Crowley grinned, closing the laptop and vanishing it to another room along with Aziraphale's book. "Well then," he announced triumphantly, looping his arms around the angel's neck, "both of us have done our work for the day, and we've got the whole afternoon for other activities."

"You're certainly in a better mood now," Aziraphale remarked with amusement.

"What can I say, angel? I feel good. I feel accomplished." Crowley pretended to think for a moment before adding, "I feel like the cross-breeze in the bedroom saves energy from the air conditioner and makes for a more environmentally friendly experience."

"You know the  _ air conditioner _ doesn't use any energy," the angel said, rolling his eyes. "Well. Not earthly energy, anyway."

"Would you just – let me have this, okay?" Crowley pouted, shoving playfully at Aziraphale's chest. He might have continued, but his whining was cut off with a gleeful gasp when Aziraphale stood without warning, scooping up the demon in his arms, and made for the bedroom.


End file.
